Thursday, July 22, 2010

Is chromosome fusion proof of evolution?

I am going to change from my normal style of posts just briefly to discuss a current issue that may be a little more technical. The issue is that primates have 24 pairs of chromosomes while Humans have only 23 pairs. Evolutionists claim that for this to be true and for evolution to be viable, we have to find 2 pairs of our chromosomes fused. And they believe they have found just that (note: the evidence for this is good, but not conclusive), so evolution is true.



While this seems compelling at first glance, is it?

First, this argument is a fallacy called 'the fallacy of confirming the argument'. Meaning 'If P, the Q. Q therefore P' or 'If we have a common ancestor there will be chromosome fusion. There is, therefore we have a common ancestor.' When in reality, all that is shown is that there is a fusion.

Second, this is not compelling evidence even if true because it is a difference between us and them, not a similarity. It would be far more compelling if everything was similar, not different with a possible explanation. What evolutionists would need to find is the primate in our supposed ancestry that has the fused chromosome to show that this change did actually occur. Without it, all they have is yet another difference in our genetics.

Third, mapping the chromosomes is one thing, knowing the intricacies of and total function of how and why they work is quite another. And that is something we are nowhere close to understanding.

Again, a common designer would use similar tools and similar plans for similar creations. For instance, I make shoes and boots for use in my hobby. To make the shoes, I use the same pattern as I do for the boots and alter it into a shoe. Same with God's creation. He uses genetics and alters them as needed. So He used the same coding principal and fused two together in one and not the other to achieve the desired result. It is not a big deal at all.

Some will claim that making them similar and fusing them together is being deceptive.
However, it is not deceptive in the least. The fact they are similar still points to a common creator. The fact that they are different shows simply that He had to change them to get the desired result.

Evolutionists then claim that chromosome fusion shows that evolution is 'science' because it is a testable and falsifiable prediction. The evolutionist says "if evolution is true, we must explain this difference and here is our explanation. If the explanation was not here, evolution would be falsified."

They will then say that Creation is not science because it makes no such falsifiable prediction. However, this is completely false. The Creationist says "If Creation is true, we must show there are differences and here it is. If there were no differences, Creation would be falsified."

In conclusion, this again is fact verses concept. The SCIENTIFIC FACT is there is a difference in the number of chromosomes between apes and man. There is POSSIBLE evidence to show where two chromosomes may be fused. But that is ALL the evidence shows. The story used to explain the difference (either fused through evolution or through planned design) is philosophy.

In His Service... Arthur Smith

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Evolving Parts Is Not Enough

Previously I have discussed the Miller-Urey experiment which Biology Texts use to claim that life can evolve by natural means. I had previously shown where this experiment not only did not prove this, but also doesn't even prove the evolutionary scientist's claims that it created the building blocks of life. But I want to take this one step further.

For this post, I will pretend that they actually did form the 'building blocks of life' as they claim. Does this really help prove evolution? Only in the tiniest bit. Why? Because as an old commercial states, "parts is parts". What I mean here is that parts do not make life. No matter how many parts you have, no matter how evolved these parts are, you still do not have life. Life requires these parts to be assembled in a 'biological machine'. Let me show you.



Above we have a bunch of parts. Are they of any use? Would they server any purpose on their own? What if they got fancier? If you had these parts sitting in a drawer, would you use them? No, they would sit there and rust until you threw them away. This is the same as in nature. Even if the parts were there, they would be useless until they were assembled. They would sit in the drawer so-to-speak, until natural selection threw them away.

It is not until these parts are assembled as below, that they have any purpose.



You see, even if the parts were there, until they are assembled into the biological system, the 'machine', they serve no purpose. And just like the parts above, tossing the parts around randomly can never produce a functioning machine, little lone a functioning machine that can reproduce itself. These parts have to be assembled in a particular and specific order to achieve a useful function. Actual, scientific testing and observation tells us that this absolutely never happens without intelligence. It is only by denying science and the Laws of Nature that one could ever hope that the assembling of a functional machine could ever happen without an intelligence behind it.

In His service... Arthur Smith

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The probability of Evolution

In 1860, at the Oxford Union in England, the “Great Debate” took place between the Anglican Archbishop of Oxford University, Samuel Wilberforce, and evolutionist and agnostic, Thomas Huxley. Though there is some disagreement in the details, it is said to prove the possibility that the genetic information in the cells (DNA) could assemble itself by chance, random processes, Huxley asked Wilberforce if six monkeys sitting at typewriters could ever type a recognizable word (allowing the monkeys could live forever and never run out of ink or paper). Wilberforce was forced to say 'yes'.



Huxley went on and asked, again, given the monkeys could live forever and never run out of supplies, could these same monkeys type an actual sentence? Once again, Wilberforce was forced to say 'yes'. Huxley then asked the big question: given the monkeys could live forever and never run out of supplies, could these same monkeys eventually type the works of Shakespeare?


In other words, given infinite time, the monkeys would successfully type "Romeo". Given even more time they would type "Romeo, Romeo." Even more time and they'd get "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love And I'll no longer be a Capulet..."

Here Wilberforce and all creationists do have to be honest and admit that given an infinite amount of time and the specified circumstances, that yes this could happen. So, case closed, monkeys win, correct?

Wrong. Here's why.

This analogy which has been used to convince countless people, including myself, is fatally flawed. Why? Because it assumes that once the letter is "typed" that it is locked in. If this were the case, given infinite time, the monkeys very well would eventually, accidentally type Romeo and Juliet. However, this is not how DNA works.

Molecules not only form, but they break down. As an example, water (2 hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule combined) evaporates into three separate atoms: hydrogen, hydrogen and oxygen. These three separate atoms are no longer water but are free to form any other molecule.

What does this mean? It means as the monkeys start to type they might get "Romeo". Indeed given even more time they might be lucky enough to type "Romeo, Romeo." However, molecules are not locked together like the typed words from the monkeys. For the analogy to correctly reflect the nature of the DNA, the previously typed letters would have to start breaking down. So by the time they tried to accidentally get to "wherefore", what was previously on the paper would look more like "omeo? Rom o". As the typing progressed it would be "om ? R m o, o o w hrefore art thou Romeo".

Are you getting the picture? Could any number of monkeys, typing for an infinite amount of time, ever type Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' under this scenario which correctly models how molecules actually work? The answer is simply, "no".

Another way it has been stated is through the fact that IF there is ANY chance that something could occur, no matter how incredibly small, given enough time it will happen. So no matter how slim the chance, it goes to show how evolution could happen, right? Wrong. Here's why:

Take these two dice and roll them. How many tries will it take to roll a 15? If any number of monkeys roll and roll and roll from now through infinity, how long would it take before they roll a 15 with these two dice? They never would. The chance of doing the impossible is zero.

According to the Laws of Probability, if the chance of something happening is smaller than 1 chance in 10 followed by 50 zeros, then the event will NEVER occur/ The calculated possibility of getting a single cell by natural processes is calculated as 1 chance in 10 followed by 40,000 zeros. Once again, the chance of doing the impossible is zero.

In His service... Arthur Smith